The Third Wheel Hook-Up

by admin on October 15, 2012

In my college days, I was rather socially awkward. This limited any chances I ever had at dating, so I usually hung out at home all weekend. At the time one of my friends from high school was just discovering he was gay and enjoying every minute of it. He would share stories of the fun nights he had at the “gay bars” in our area.

One night, he invited me to come out with him. Being straight, I was a little hesitant. He assured me, that being a girl, and it was mostly guys there, I’d be welcome by all and he was right. We both had a blast. Until closing time…. my friend has met another guy during the evening who invited my friend back to his place to “hook up”. Since my friend was my ride, I was stuck going with him. Following the mystery man to his house, I ask my friend what’s to become of me. He says, “Oh, I forgot to tell him you were with me, I’m sure he’s got a guest room you can crash in.” Great, I’m a third-wheel for a hook-up. I ask him if it’s possible to drop me off at home, but he says it’s too far and promises he’ll wake up early and get us out of there asap.

When we get to mystery man’s house at about 3 am, I’m finally introduced and informed there’s no extra bedroom, but I can sleep on the recliner in the living room. They leave me be and go into his bedroom. At about 6 am I’m woken by, I’m guessing, younger siblings screaming. Two minutes later I hear what is obviously his parents entering the adjoining kitchen making their coffee. These people probably have no idea who this random girl is on their recliner, so I pretended I was still asleep as they went through their morning routine. An hour later, I hear, I’m assuming his mother, knock on mystery man’s door asking, “Honey, when are you going to get up? You have a guest sleeping out here and so and so want to watch their cartoons.” I feel so out of place and by this time really had to pee, so I “woke” up, went to the bathroom, came back out to the recliner and sat. I introduced myself to the parents as a friend of a friend to their son and made small talk. At first they were pleasant, until they found out my friend wasn’t female. It became apparent they did not support their son’s life choice, and that they’re disappointed that I’m not in the bedroom and my male friend is out here. As if it wasn’t uncomfortable enough, they started on about how homosexuality is a sin and God punished them by making their son a ***. I quickly thanked them for their hospitality and excused myself to wait outside in my friend’s car until he woke….4 HOURS LATER!! I don’t even know what was worse, the inconsideration of my friend or the bigot parents from hell!! 1004-12

You learned a handful of valuable lessons that day….hopefully. One, your friend is a selfish, inconsiderate creep who put his gonads before his friendship with you for the sake of a one night stand. His sexuality is utterly irrelevant at this point because had he been straight, his behavior still would have been crass and dismissive of his first obligation to treat his friend and guest with respect. He invited you to accompany him on his bar rounds and he had an obligation to return you home before pursuing his passions. Girl, you got dumped like an inconvenient sack of potatoes.

Second, your friend is a presumptive cretin who didn’t even bother to tell his “Mystery man” that you were with him and just presumed he would offer you some hospitality. Good lord, the hairs on the back of my head are standing on end just at the thought of the awkwardness of this. At the point where your friends tries to tell you it’s too far to your house, that is when you should have grown a polite spine and told him, “No, that is not acceptable. I agreed to accompany you to the bar. I did not sign on to be the surprise guest at some stranger’s house while you two have sex in the next room. Please take me home right now so that you can enjoy your evening in peace.”

Third, I can predict that many commentators to this story will take great issue with you blindly strolling into a “mystery man’s” home with no idea of where you are going and no real plan on how to extricate yourself. It doesn’t appear that you and “mystery man” had even met since he was not aware you were the guest of his “date”.

The parents should have taken better charge of that situation. There’s no way I’d allow my adult/near-adult son to bring home two strangers (including one for sex), especially while I had in the house children young enough to watch cartoons. Instead of imposing their “sin” speech on you, they should have been focusing on their son’s lack of responsibility.

As an unapologetic fruit fly I have been in situations precariously close to the 3rd wheel in the potential gay hookup, but I’ve never had anyone drag me along to a random guy’s house. YIKES. This sounds like a nightmare scenario, I really hope you impressed upon your friend what an awful thing that was to do to you. Boys are supposed to take care of their “sisters”.

That being said, the mental image of these parents waking up to find a girl on the recliner with a “friend” in their sons bedroom and then finding out that said friend is another guy and being disappointed that you’re not in the bedroom with him instead is the stuff that sitcoms are made of. Treating you like a partner in crime and using you as a surrogate for whatever anti-gay diatribe they were saving for their son is just icing on the cake. You’d think if their son is bringing strangers back to his family’s home(!!!) for one night stands there is a more pressing concern here. As terribly awkward as that all sounds, I hope you can find the humor in it now.

I want to know what became of the friendship after that. Did you have the chance to tell this friend what it was like for you when he eventually did drive you home? Did he own up to his horrible behavior? Did he learn anything from it and grow up?

I’m an incredible optimist. I believe young people do stupid things and have the ability to change. (I’m also enough of a realist to know that some people start out inconsiderate and continue that way.)

I realize you were awfully young, but even if you missed speaking up when going along as the 3rd wheel, one place you might have spoken up might have been knocking on that closed door to wake your friend up in the morning. Better than waiting 4 hours.

True to our admin’s prediction, the real lesson I take from this story is that one should always have a back-up plan when it comes to transportation. I made this mistake for years and years and got myself into all sorts of awkward situations and sometimes dangerous ones. Now I often drive myself even when offered a ride. When I accept a ride, I still have money for a taxi or for the friend’s gas or even a tow truck. I sometimes think knowing how to get an alternate way home is more important than knowing how to contact the police.

Admin pretty much covered everything I was thinking about your friend.

The friend definitely acted like a selfish creep, but more for your own safety I hope you learned not to ever go to a random stranger’s house again with no way out. I’m guessing from the story that no one even knew where you and your friend would be spending the night. That could have been an even worse situation than it apparently was.

Admin’s #4 should really be #1. ALWAYS have the resources for self-sufficiency (in this case, the means to get yourself home). ALWAYS, ALWAYS.

You were crazy to go into the home of a stranger.

Your friend isn’t a friend — he wasn’t looking out for you.

I’m glad you learned all of these lessons without something horribly bad happening to you. Yes, I can only imagine how uncomfortable all of this was for you but it was awkward, not physically damaging.

My kids are too young for any of that nonsense, but I would NOT be happy with any of my kids bringing a one night stand into my home, especially if there were younger siblings around. I’d feel sorry for the abandoned, polite, uncomfortable girl stuck on the couch, though.

I’ll cut the OP a bit of slack for the polite spine- while OP could have kicked up enough of a fuss where the guy would have been forced to take her home, I’m sure she was worried it would end their friendship (because this guy sounds like someone who would cut off a friend for ruining his chance of a one night stand). And since the OP said she was having trouble making friends, I understand her reluctance to alienate this friend, no matter how badly he may have treated her. (Although this may not be a friendship worth keeping, it’s hard when you are young to understand that a bad friend is not better than no friends).

OP, I don’t know if you stayed friends with this guy or not- if so I hope it was after a sincere apology from this friend a promise to never do anything like this to you again.

And admin is right, whenever you go out with someone who is your ride, always bring money for a cab, just in case.

YES. MONEY FOR A TAXI. Sorry to shout, but this drives me crazy. I’ve read too many stories about terrible dates that include the sentence “He/she was my ride, so I had no choice but to go with him/her”. Never, ever put yourself into the position when that is your only choice!

Another solution would be to say, “Sorry, I need to get home. Give me your keys; I’ll drive myself. You go with your new friend, and he can drop you off at my place tomorrow. You can pick up your car then.”
There’s no way I would go to a stranger’s home as a third wheel. Too many odd characters out there, regardless of their sexual preference. Jeffrey Daumer picked up guys that way and made meals of them. You might have ended up as dessert.
That said, I am not impressed that the stranger considered it acceptable to bring his sexual partners into his parent’s home for the night. They were clear that they found his behavior offensive, and he did not respect the fact that it was their home, even to the point of their finding total strangers asleep in the living room. There’s a line between your right to be who you are as an adult and how you behave in your parent’s home.
My brother, who is straight, would bring girls we had never seen home, spend the night with them, and then present them at the breakfast table with me, our mother, and our grandmother present. They were not steady girlfriends or anyone with whom he had a deep attachment. He was stealing money from my parents, hiring whomever was on the streets, and bringing them into our home. My parents were too frightened of him to complain.

I’m pretty socially awkward, too, but I have been in similar situations and said “I don’t care where you go once I’m there, but you said you’d drive, and there’s no way I’m going somewhere I don’t know. To campus!”, followed by dragging by the ear to the vehicle.
Of course, our college town was tiny, and getting to my place from the bars was 5-8 minutes at most. We also had a drunk bus, and there were several times I caught someone I knew from a class and sat next to them (I made the mistake of being a lone female on the drunk bus at 2 in the morning once, and luckily the driver was observant, I wasn’t going to do it again).
Call me old-fashioned, but when I agree to be the driver to a place that generally involves alcohol, I take it was a much bigger responsibility than ‘I’ll get you there’. I agree to not drink (and I have walked several miles to get home because I had something to drink and refused to drive home), or, barring that, have per-arranged alternative transportation back. I also know that if the situation is calling for a designated driver, and that’s my responsibility, I am responsible for keeping an eye on my friends, rounding them up at the end of the night, and getting them back into their house/apartment/building. If I choose to hook up with some stranger afterwards, I’m free to do so, but until they are safe at home I promised to get them there, and I must fulfill my promise even if the Johnny Depp look-alike doesn’t want to wait.

Ah, youth.
The time when you make tons of mistakes, but also end up with hilarious stories to tell in later years.

I’m sorry you had such an awkward experience OP. But it appears both you and your friend were really young at the time.

Being a veteren of closing time at LGBTQ friendly bars, I can tell you there are always several ladies left at closing time by their gay friend who found a Prince Charming to spend the evening with. You can always split a taxi with a couple of them.

Also, being older and wiser, next time you will bring your own car or money for cab fare.

I know that the OP was young, everyone makes mistakes when they are young. But I hope that she did not stay friends with this guy. If we take the safety issue out of the equation completely, anyone who ignores a friend’s protests when he or she feels uncomfortable, and leads them into the situation anyway is not a real friend. Your “friend” is a selfish bastard!

I feel sorry for the OP and when I was younger I was in similar situations myself with a friend. I did not have a car and we’d go out and I’d have to go with her to some random guy’s house and sit in his living room and possible doze on his couch while they “hooked up” in the bedroom. I was too afraid to call home because I knew my family already was not fond of her and I was afraid they’d never let me hang out with her again, and thus, since I didn’t have many friends that went out, I’d never get to go out again.

Another friend has a funny story. “Tyler” was at a bar with one of his female friends “Hannah.” Hannah met a guy and both she and the brand new beau got trashed. At the end of the night, since Hannah and New Guy lived kind of far away and were too drunk to drive, Hannah asked if she and New Guy could crash in Tyler’s living room that night. Of course Tyler allowed them to since he’d kind of expected Hannah to need to crash when they made the plans to hang out. Well, at 6 am Tyler awoke to the sounds of Hannah and New Guy “hooking up.” Then, to top it all off, when he came out of his room later that morning, Hannah asked him to get her and New Guy some coffee since they were both naked under the sheets!! Since he didn’t want to see either one of them in that state, he complied!! I told him to charge her the hotel rate next time and I refer to her as “Hotel Hannah.”

I feel sorry for the mystery man’s little siblings–they’re the only innocent victims here. OP shouldn’t have accompanied her friend to the mystery man’s house in the first place. OP’s friend shouldn’t have ditched his friend as soon as the opportunity for sex came up. The mystery man shouldn’t be having one-night stands in his parents house, and his parents shouldn’t tolerate their presumably adult son bring strangers back from a bar when there are young children in the house.

Ok, I have NO idea why OP did not throw a FIT at the bar and tell him under no circumstances was she going with him?? Besides how wildly inappropriate etiquette-wise all of this was, the first mistake was OP’s for going along with this. I don’t care how young she was, this was her fault for being led like a stray puppy into this scenario.

I don’t go out without cab fare even when I am driving. Most of the time I’ll have one or two drinks early in the evening and stop, however if plans change and I don’t I can cab it and get my car the next day. Another tip is getting to know the bartenders where you go, I did get stuck once without cash, the bartender who knew me let me do a $20 ‘tip’ on my credit card and gave me $20 cash from her tip jar. Having been a regular and a good tipper in the past helped I’m sure.

I have to say though surprising parents with guest would not have ended well in my family home. My parents are fairly liberal, but when bring guests home overnight the question was always ‘what are the sleeping arrangements?’ and ‘is everyone comfortable with it?’ They were fine with me sharing a bed with my significant other if they knew and she was comfortable with the arrangement.

Learning to be at least a little paranoid is a good idea, never walk into a situation unless you know how to walk out of it.

So let me get this straight. The bar wasn’t so far from your home that it was impractical to go, but it was too far to be convenient to drop you off. Nu-uh. They either needed to pony up for cab fare or deliver you in person.

Been in similar situations, OP. It’s these spineless times that give us the strength to use our spines more effectively later in life.

this may sound a little extreme but by refusing to bring you home he is kinda holding you hostage lol. if it would have been me i think i would have suggested that i take his car home so he could stay with his hookup, then come back and picked him up the next day. sorry but your friends a creep . my single friend and i have a policy that if we are out and she meets someone ( iam married) that she can get his number but cannot under any circumstance leave me high and dry for another guy. my husband even made her promise this. lol i mean how desperate can you be to dump your friend for a one nighter? like it cant wait till the next day??

– OP should have brought money for a taxi, or driven her own car, or insisted on being taken home, or taken the bus home from the bar. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and she paid the price for it (sleeping on a random stranger’s couch). Finally, she should have woken her friend up instead of waiting in his car for 4 hours.

– Friend of OP should have taken OP home before going with the hookup. Or let her drive his car and hitched a ride with the hookup instead. Or given her money for a taxi. Or hooked her up with a friend at the bar to drive her home. Anything but taking her to spend the night alone on the couch at the hookup’s place.

– Hookup should known better than to bring a guy home to his bigoted parent’s house. Instead, he should have instead gone with friend of OP to *his* place since it is child-free and bigoted parent-free. On the way there they could have dropped off OP so they could be alone.

– Bigoted parents should have stormed into their son’s room, woken them both up, and kicked out Friend of OP. Being “disappointed” and going into the “gay is sin” speech with the ditched female friend while leaving their son alone in his room all morning with his gay hookup is the height of spinelessness.

Thanks for your comments! This was over 20 years ago, chalk it up to being young and VERY DUMB. The taxi would’ve been expensive since this happened in a rural area, but it would have worked. I wish I thought of that! Driving home myself was out of the question because I had a couple of drinks. For those curious, we’re no longer friends.

If this were in a movie or sitcom, I’d be watching it with a pillow over my face out of embarrassment! OP, I’m sorry this actually happened to you. While I’ve never had anything quite that awkward happen to me in my younger days, I can see how the chain of events just gets out of control, and by the time you realize things are going right off the rails…well, you’re being woken up by the elementary-school-age siblings of the guy your friend spent the night with.

This definitely sounds like “drunk logic” to me on the part of the friend: “yeah, it’ll all work out, he’s got a couch or something, I’m sure.” Probably had no idea that he was being taken to his new paramour’s childhood home, complete with young siblings and disapproving parents, and thought he was going to an off-campus apartment or a dorm room. This was probably an awful morning for all players: OP, friend, friend’s new friend, and parents. Only the children probably thought it was cool and exciting to wake up with someone they didn’t know in the living room (unless it was such a frequent occurrence that they were tired of it too).

Sooo many things wrong with this situation. First of all, who brings back sex partners to the house they live in with their parents?? And what kind of parents would allow that? That is so many degrees of inappropriate and gross. And the actions of this “friend” and his partner were unbelievably rude. As for admonishing the OP for not doing something about this, I cut her much slack as it sounds like she was young, naive, and new to social situations. She was probably too shocked to respond any differently.
Under no circumstances or situations is it ever okay to drag a friend or third party along on a booty call. Make other arrangments when the third party isn’t around. You can wait.

I felt like I was reading my own story except that it was 1988 and I called from a pay phone a co-worker that I knew had just gone to bed so he would be the least irritated of all my party buddies to come pick me up & take me home.

The lesson I learned was to drive myself to any future nights on the town with my girlfriend that left me hanging that night!

I think out of all the people in the story, the Hook-Up was by far the worst, simply by the SHEER VOLUME of people he was rude too.

1) He was rude to the OP by letting her be trapped at his house where he knew she was uninvited and unwelcome.
2) He was rude to his one night stand by bringing him home to his homophobic parents.
3) He was rude to his parents. Yes, they are bigots, but people do have the right to control what happens in their OWN HOME.
4) He was rude to his siblings, and exposed them to danger.

Rudeness abounds! OP did the best she could in a bad situation, but next time take cab fare or have a ride arranged on standby or something. I think just about everyone has had to learn this lesson the hard way! Count me in too – but it was a much more harmless situation of an after-concert bar hop when I just wanted to go home and sleep.

But ultimately, this was on OP’s friend who have either taken the guy’s number for a later date, arranged for OP’s transportation home, or drop OP off at her place before the hook-up. When I’ve been the ride – as I have many times – I view my first responsibility as the people I’m giving rides to.

Kingsrings, with more and more adult children living with their parents, bringing a sex partner home is a more common thing. Very few people choose total chastity, so those adults are likely going to have sex at some point, whether casually or as part of a committed relationship. Where else to go but your own bedroom? A lot depends on the set-up: there’s a big difference with a bedroom right next to the parents’ room an a basement room with a separate entrance. Also, it depends on the age of the adults, the relationship of the adult to the parent, and the nature of the sex (hook-up vs. committed relationship). It’s a minefield.

In this case, the parents see it as not acceptable if the hook-up is gay but acceptable if it is straight. That’s a whole different issue!

Elf, I do not think any child living at home should presume to think that bringing home guests for the explicit purpose of engaging in sex is automatically OK. I do think parents, i.e. the masters of the house, have a reasonable expectation of knowing who their overnight guests will be (with the power to veto the guest list) and what those guests are doing in their home. You want to have sex? Grow up and get your own place. Otherwise parents can experience what a family I know well did….the overnight guest helped himself to an ATM card he “found” in the hosts’ house and proceeded to drain it of about $1,000.00.

Good grief. You and your “friend” went home with a stranger you met in a bar. Said stranger could easily been a predator. Your “friend” at least had the excuse of his raging hormones, but what on earth was YOUR reasoning? If you were living at home, couldn’t you have phoned your mother or father, explained the situation, and asked them to be waiting with cab fare when the taxi you took home got to your house? I would have demanded that my “friend” either cough up cab fare or take me home, and I’d have been increasingly vocal in my protests until “friend” couldn’t cope with the scene I was causing. The need for good manners doesn’t trump the need for personal safety.

@Cat – “Another solution would be to say, “Sorry, I need to get home. Give me your keys; I’ll drive myself. You go with your new friend, and he can drop you off at my place tomorrow. You can pick up your car then.”

PRECISELY what I was thinking! There are two cars, the friend and his one-night-stand want to be together, the OP wanted to go home. That would be how I would have handled it. “Oh, you guys go on, I’ll take your car home for you.”

Admin, I wasn’t saying that it was *automatically* ok. There’s a lot of “it depends” in my post! I’m saying the situation is becoming more common. What was once unthinkable has become a maybe. Nor do I think these adult children are necessarily NOT grown up. While I think it behooves any adult to become financially independent as soon as possible (which includes their own place), the fact is that it’s tough out there right now. Many young adults are struggling to get any job, much less one that pays well enough to become independent. Or it could be that the parents are out of work or underemployed and the adult children’s income is helping. Then you throw in all sorts of other financial obligations or temporary situations (just after divorce, etc) and it’s easy to see why adult children living at home is more and more common. This doesn’t make them immature. And, dealing with adults, you can’t just expect everyone to be totally chaste. However, it is reasonable to put down rules and reach compromise. A reasonable compromise would be boyfriends/girlfriends only (not one-night-stands); the parents want to meet the person first.

I remember when I returned home for the summer for my first year of college, and my parents and I had to reach an accord of what would and would not be acceptable. They were all for instituting the old high school rules (including curfew!), while I maintained that I had lived on campus without supervision for 9 months quite effectively and that there should be no rules. We compromised – some rules (including a ban on male overnight guests) stayed in effect. In return, they didn’t object when I didn’t come home until the morning.

Also, if the adult child is paying rent, my home my rules becomes a little iffier. There it’s a landlord-renter relationship wrapped up in parent-child relationship. As I said, it’s a minefield.

I didn’t read the parents as being okay with a hookup. I see it as them waking up, finding a random girl in the living room and hopinghopinghoping SHE was the hookup because that would mean their son wasn’t really gay (and therefore, not really eternally damned).

Re: Driving myself home. Unless the friend had committed to remaining sober so as to be the designated driver, I would have limited myself in my drinking. If he stayed until closing time and was having “a blast!”, I would not lay money on his being in a condition to drive safely. I want to know whose job it was supposed to be to get both of you home safely.
You were very lucky in many ways.

Elf – what EHell Dame said. I don’t know of anybody who would think it okay to bring home complete strangers or not very personally well known people, and for the purpose of having one-night stands. Not only for the ethics of it (sorry, but that’s just tacky to do that where others live, also), but more so, the safety/security of it. Even if I was just roommates with someone, I wouldn’t live there unless there was a house rule that no strangers were to spend the night there. Myself and my belongings will not be put at risk! If people who don’t live on their own want to do a one-night stand hook-up, there are plenty of hotels/motels around for that.

I must not have been very clear. Or I misread your post. I took your post to mean any sex partner – whether a one-night stand or a steady boyfriend/girlfriend – was unthinkable in the parent’s home.

All I’m saying is that as more adult children live with parents, the standards are changing to accommodate the real sex lives that single adults have. That doesn’t mean that parents – or roommates – should always allow casual hook-ups to be brought to the house. There’s a lot of give and take, a lot of situational stuff, and it depends totally on the people involved. I can see the arguments for and against it, depending on the situations. I must admit that I wouldn’t be comfortable with someone I lived with bringing home random hook-ups either for the same reasons you cite. But I don’t think that is is automatically a no-no anymore.

@The Elf–During my second round of university, I lived in a sharehouse with four roommates–three guys, one girl, and me (I’m female). Anyway, the guy in the bedroom next to mine had a girlfriend, and I’m not quite sure what the dynamics were, but I’m fairly certain that the time frame between him getting to know her, and him bringing him home to his bedroom to engage in amorous activities, was fairly short, because I don’t remember her ever coming to visit for a more platonic reason, e.g., dinner, watching TV or a movie, etc. That wasn’t a problem, because they were both consenting adults, EXCEPT that I shared a wall with this guy, and the walls in our house were fairly thin. So, I’m not sure if it was rudeness, per se, but it was a bit awkward, because it became incumbent on me to put up with the sounds coming through the walls, and then, when I saw this girl in the kitchen or living room later, I had to pretend that I didn’t know what was going on. It was also a bit awkward, because my roommate was honestly a nice guy (I got along with all of my housemates fairly well); it was just that he was either oblivious to the fact that sound travelled so easily in our house, or he just had a low threshold for embarrassment–he also didn’t have any qualms about being seen in just his boxer-briefs. The other thing is, I think the girlfriend did know that I knew, because she looked as awkward as I felt when I saw her, but maybe, for whatever reason, they didn’t have any other options.

I’m afraid that although your friend’s behaviour was certainly wrong, I’m going to have to fault you here. You should have stood up for yourself and refused to go to this stranger’s house and if your friend refused to take you home, you should have found some alternate and safe route. Unless your friend has wholeheartedly apologized and vowed never to treat you this way again (in which case one more chance might be in order, depending on your closeness and past history), I would drop him.

Before I started dating, my parents taught me to ALWAYS bring enough money for a taxi, just in case my date decided to be a jerk, and I needed to make a quick getaway.

When I went to college, the advisors told us to always tell your friends, especially roommates, when you were going on a date, with whom, and when you planned to be back, so that they would know if/when to start worrying, and have the pertinent information for the police.

Also, we were to find a buddy who could/would agree to come pick us up, if necessary.

It all seemed paranoid, to me, until I saw real people in real situations where a quick getaway was, indeed, needed. And today, with cell phones, it’s even better. If your date drives you up the mountain to look at the view, then claims he has car troubles, and that your options are to have sex with him or walk home, alone, in the dark, with the mountain lions (YEP, this one was pulled on a friend), then having a cell phone and a buddy who can come get you are lifesavers. Especially when the car will “magically” fix itself after the sex. Hehe. Yeah, right.

Anyway, I’m sorry for your experience. Chalk it up to a lesson learned, and be sure to tell all your less-experienced friends, so they can learn the lesson, without the pain.

And steer clear of your “friend,” until he learns to think of others.

A thought occurred to me. Perhaps the parents were not really bigots from hell, but were just trying to make you even more uncomfortable, because they were upset with having an unexpected guest, and wanted to teach you a lesson. I’ve met people who would do just that.

Had it been my parents in that situation, they would have woken up the “mystery man,” as soon as they saw the girl in the recliner. There would be no four-hour wait. Even if he was groggy as all get out, he would be made to escort the “guests” home.

I’m picturing my father driving, while the mystery man and hook-up rode along to see you safely home. FIRST. After that, he’d see about getting the hook-up safely home, with probably quite a bit of lecture along the way.

To be fair to all concerned, let us remember that this happened after going for drinks at a bar. In other words, no one was at their best. Alcohol dulls the thinking process quite a lot.

Mind you. I am by NO means making the excuse that they were drunk, so they were not responsible. I’m a tea-totally, myself, and figure that if you choose to take the drink, you choose to face the consequences that go with it.

From hearing too many “This happened while I was drunk” stories, I have come to the conclusion that if you really want to go out to drink, go right ahead, AFTER you have set up a contingency plan. Plan for whatever stupid things you might do, while drunk, so that you can avoid and/or mitigate them, while still enjoying your buzz.

If you knew you were drinking, obviously you could not take his car. But then again, was he sober when he drove you? No, no, this is a case where a designated driver would have been a life-saver. Even a non-driver designated sober friend is a good thing to have.

For example, if you brought along your designated sober friend, even if she does not have a license, she will still be sober enough to think clearly, and save you from the initial mistake of allowing “friend” to drag you to the hook-up’s house. Sober friend could say, “Well, a taxi is expensive, but that is a safer option. Or maybe we could see about sharing a taxi with some other people here. Or, remember that our other friend lives near here, and might be willing to pick us up.” When you are sober, you can think of all these options that just don’t come to mind when you are drunk.

So, if you’re going to take that first drink, take precautions FIRST. That’s my motto.